IP Reputation can be used as a cyber risk assessment metric to better understand how hackers leverage and exploit your IP addresses listed in websites used by hackers.

What is IP Reputation?

Employees may download applications that compromise computers and network. As a result, IP address can become part of a hacker’s network and hosting malware. Hackers can leverage IP addresses for Advanced Persistent Attacks. This can compromise the company’s brand reputation and lead to a breach.

How good are companies when IP Reputation is used as cyber risk assessment metric?

NormShield conducted a survey, which reviews trends and insights from Cyber Risk Scorecard key data points that include detailed external security risk data from cyber risk scoring for 5,217 organizations across multiple industries and over one million active assets on the Internet, including web and network devices. NormShield cyber risk scorecard checks if an organization’s IP addresses have been associated with any blacklists.

According to the survey, 60% of the companies fail and receive C or lower grade on IP Reputation. This result reveals a bitter truth, which is a simple fact that even the beginner-level hackers (aka script kiddies) can use your IP addresses for practice. Your IP assets can be exploited for malicious actions and, since you are not aware of this exploitation, your IP addresses may appear in blacklists. Thus C or lower grade pose a significant cyber risk. The complete version of this survey can be reached here.